Chapter 5 — “Skin on Fire”

Ten thousand gold pieces hit the auction table in a leather pouch, ringing like a death bell through the silence of the Pit.

Lord Garrick sat down slowly, his face drained of all color, his ivory betting paddle slipping from his sweaty palm and dropping on the stone floor with a sharp, hollow clatter. The rest of the wealthy buyers kept their eyes glued strictly to the dirt, too terrified to even glance up

at the sovereign ruler of the Blackthorn Kingdom standing at the edge of the

shadows.

“Unhand her," Silas Reed ordered, his harsh voice snapped the stunned auctioneer back to reality.

The slave trader scrambled to the wooden stage with a heavy ring of iron

keys. His hands were trembling so violently that he dropped the keys twice against the floorboards before he finally managed to hit the keyhole.

The iron chains binding Elena's ankles fell away. However, the thick cuffs around her wrists remained tightly shut, biting into her raw skin.

Two royal guards flanked her on the stage, keeping a careful distance as they walked her down the steps. The King's threat still hung in the air, and no one in the Pit was foolish enough to lay a hand on the girl he'd just bought.

Elena forced herself to walk with slow, deliberate steps. Every breath felt like inhaling shattered glass. The wound across her ribs throbbed in time with her pulse, and the poison still in her blood made her legs feel like lead, but she kept her spine straight and her chin up.

They led her out of the dampness of the Pit and into the crisp, biting mountain air.

Waiting on the dirt road stood the royal carriage — a black iron hull pulled by four shadow-wolves, their eyes burning like coals in the dark. Runes were carved deep into the doors, pulsing faint crimson.

Silas pulled the door open. "Get in.”

Elena stepped up into the cabin. The door slammed shut behind her, locking her into the small, shadow-draped space.

King Ronan already sat across from her, on a bench lined with black fur.

The air inside the carriage was thick and suffocatingly hot.

The moment Elena sat down on the leather seat across from him, Ronan's immense aura hit her like a physical blow. The raw, lethal pressure radiating off his

broad body was enough to make an ordinary wolf collapse to their knees

or faint from terror.

Elena felt her heart violently hammer against her bruised ribcage. The silver in her veins flared in protest, but she gritted her teeth and stared straight into his lmolten golden eyes.

Ronan leaned back against the dark furs, crossing one long leg over the

other with absolute grace. His sharp, calculating eyes scanned her from head to toe – taking in her dirty face, the bloody, shredded linen tunic clinging to her torso, and the way her small, bruised hands clenched into tight fists to hide her involuntary trembling.

"You do not bow,” he stated, less of a question. His voice filled the small space, low enough to hum through the wood beneath them.

"I have already dropped to my knees once in my life,” Elena replied, her voice was rough from smoke, thirst, and dried blood."It was a mistake I will never make again.”

A faint, dangerous smirk flickered across Ronan's brutal face.

"A proud slave," he murmured, his sharp golden eyes narrowing into thin slits. "Pride will do you no good here, little stray. Most wolves drop to their faces and beg for mercy the second I step into a room.”

"Then I am not most wolves," Elena said, meeting his lethal gaze without a single trace of fear.

“Evidently.”

He shifted forward across the seat. The air between them tightened, charged, and the fine hairs on Elena's arms rose. That same scent found her again — woodsmoke and cedar, close now, unbearably familiar though she had never once stood near this man before tonight. Somewhere at the back of her mind, a memory she didn't own flickered and vanished: a fire, a voice she couldn't place, gone before she could hold it.

He reached out one gloved hand.

Elena tensed, her wolf snarling weakly under the poison, but she forced herself to remain still.

Ronan stretched out his long, broad fingers. Instead of grabbing her

neck, his hand moved lower, using his gloved fingertips to lightly push

aside the blood-soaked, torn fabric of her tunic right at her side.

His gaze darkened as he looked down at her side. The dagger cut diagonally across her lower stomach and tore straight up through her ribs. The edges of the wound were swollen, stained an unnatural shade of purple from the silver poison seeping into her flesh.

“You were run through with silver," Ronan observed quickly. "Such a wound should have left you dead.”

"I’m hard to kill, I hear" Elena replied coldly, her breathing shallow as the

cold air hit her raw wound.

Ronan didn't answer immediately. His dark brow furrowed at the blackened flesh over her ribs Slowly, he reached up with his teeth and pulled off his left leather glove, tossing it onto the fur seat beside him.

His bare hand reached toward her exposed side.

Elena's breath caught in her throat. Legend said the Lycan King's bare skin carried a heat so intense that it could scorch the flesh of any lesser wolf who dared draw near him.

He didn't hesitate. He pressed his thumb straight against the open, poisoned skin over her ribs.

The instant his skin met hers, the carriage lit up with a blinding shock.

Gold electricity crackled between his palm and her ribs.

It was a surge of old, pure power that flooded through her skin and slammed into her blood. The burn of the silver poison was incinerated in an instant, flushed out by a wave of raw warmth that rushed straight to her core.

Her wolf, starved and dormant under the cuffs, threw its head back and screamed awake.

In Ronan's chest, a low, primal roar tore out of his throat, echoing off the iron walls.

He froze.

His golden eyes snapped wide. His hand stayed pinned against her ribs, fingers trembling as sparks danced and hissed where their skin touched.

The crimson runes on the carriage doors flared bright as the whole vehicle shuddered on its wheels.

Ronan stared at her like she was a ghost from the grave, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He didn't pull his hand away.

He couldn't.

Because in the gold fire burning between his palm and her bleeding ribs, the thread of a Fated Mate bond had just snapped into place.